Being middle class isn't all it's cracked up to be ...

Over the past few weeks, there has been lots of fervor about food stamps with the whole $29 challenge thing.  There was drama.  People got all crazy. 

The problem we, as Americans, have with food stamps is that we simply refuse to admit who the working poor in this country really are.  We don’t want to believe that The Greatest Country In The World has a problem.  That its system has failed.  That the officials we put into office to help us are doing the opposite and serving their own agendas.  We aren't to blame.  It’s the “poor people”.  But … we are the poor people.

If most of the people that oppose government assistance actually went to a Dept. of Health office, the people they see would most likely surprise them. They aren't all a bunch of gangsters in gold chains and Escalades. They aren't all poor white trash meth heads with half a dozen dirty kids clinging to them.

They are normal people just like you.  You can’t look at someone and tell if they are on assistance.  We have this sense that, if you are getting food stamps, then you shouldn't have nice clothes or a nice car.  You should LOOK poor.  Needy.  Unkempt. Anyone that doesn't is obviously taking advantage of the system.  And that just isn't true.

I see plenty of people talk about how they work two jobs and can barely make ends meet, yet they make too much to qualify for assistance.  How they should just sit at home and do nothing and draw a check. And in some ways they are correct.  The system is flawed.  The middle class has become the working poor, and while we aren't making enough to get ahead, we are making too much to get help.  Barely making rent and keeping the lights on doesn't constitute a need anymore.  And that is where things are broken. 

Yet at the same time, those that do get assistance are not just sitting at home,  either smoking crack or pigging out on junk food or both, waiting for that money to come rolling in.  The people that are vocal about only getting $29 a week to feed their family also seem to think that the gangsters and meth lab moguls are sitting on the couch collecting hundreds of dollars a week from the government in assistance.  And that’s just not how it works.  We don’t want to admit that we, the mighty middle class, have a poverty problem.

Yes, there are those that abuse the system.  Those that cheat.  But for the most part, the ones that do get help are still barely getting by.  How do I know that?  Because I have been in that Health Department office.  I have seen the families there needing help.  And, for a while, I was one of them.

For a long time, I felt embarrassed when I thought about that.  Afraid to admit it.  Afraid of what people would think.  But fuck that.  I have worked for years.  I have paid taxes for years.  Then we hit a rough patch and we needed help.  We took what we could get, for as long as we needed it.  And then, as soon as we were able, we said thank you for the help and we don’t need it anymore.

I had a great job.  I was in my early thirties.  I had a college degree.  I was making almost $90,000 a year.  I was the primary breadwinner in the home.  And then, suddenly, I was unemployed.  Market changes.  Company downsizing.  Economy.  The woman in her early thirties with no kids, or the lady in her late fifties with an older husband, five kids and three grandkids, all of them depending on her … the choice was easy.  She stayed and my job was eliminated.  I understood that.

But I had never failed before. To me, this was failure.  Even though it wasn't my fault.  I sent out resumes daily.  For weeks.  Nothing.  Not a single response.  I was in insurance.  I branched out of my field into other possible openings: claims, sales, receptionist.  NOTHING.  The economy was tanking and no one was hiring.  I collected unemployment for six months.  I got about $200 a week.  It wasn't nearly enough. Luckily, I had a support system.  My family stepped up and my mom helped us.  A LOT.  She made sure we didn't lose our house.  That our bills were paid.  She kept us afloat.

I never got a single response on my resume.  I continued to send them out.  My college roommate offered me a nanny gig.  I jumped at it.  Unemployment was over and I needed a job. Any job.  So, now I was making $400 a week.  And that was still nowhere near enough.  We went from bringing in over $100,000 a year between us to making about $25,000 a year from my husband’s job.  My mom was keeping us afloat, but that couldn't last forever.  And then, I got pregnant with the kid.

My husband works in construction, so often, it is by the job.  Not all companies offer insurance.  You work for a year or two, then that job is done.  And you have to wait.  If you are lucky, you go immediately to a new site.  But, if the company doesn't have another contract, you have to go to another company.  His job had ended right after the baby was born.  His insurance went into COBRA.  That got us through the first year, but then we needed coverage. We needed help.

So we applied for food stamps and insurance.  We qualified. 

We own our home, although we do have a mortgage.  We own our vehicles.  We have nice furniture.  TVs with cable. IPhones. Nice clothes.  All that was because I had a good paying job.  And then I didn't.  But we still had those things.  We still LOOKED the same, even though we weren't anywhere near the same financially. Mom paid the bills, but we still had stuff we needed.  Baby stuff.  We lived on a credit card.  The balance inching forward.

But we had the essentials.  And every time I went to the grocery store, I was thankful.  Thankful that I got that couple hundred dollars a month to cover food.  But I was embarrassed to pull out that card and swipe it.  I felt like everyone was looking at me, judging me, KNOWING.  It was awful.  I didn't want to be lumped into the group of people that has nice things so must be cheating the system.

My mother sold the house I grew up in and gave us that money to help us survive.  I was able to stay home with the baby.  My husband went to school so he could try to find a better paying job.  Then the kid was three and it was into preschool and back to work for me.  We started taking over the bills again.  Got on our feet.  And said goodbye to food stamps and free healthcare.

Today, both of us together still make less than I used to make alone.  We struggle each week, living paycheck to paycheck.  There are student loans and a big credit card balance. Bills are paid, barely. But there’s nothing left over.  Nothing to save.  No trips to the beach.  No kitchen remodels. I've needed new tennis shoes for a year.  We have what we need to survive.  But we are still definitely a part of the working poor.

So we work, and we pay taxes, and we manage.  It’s not the life I imagined, or dreamed of.  But it’s good.  We have so much more than so many others.  And I am not ashamed of our time on assistance any more.  We needed it.  We qualified.  We used it for the time we needed it, and then we let it go.  That’s what it is supposed to be there for.  For help when you need it. 

Am I glad that we both have jobs now and can pay the bill and don’t desperately need the help to put food on the table?  Absolutely.  I am grateful for the help we were able to get, when we needed it most.

Do I sometimes wish that we still qualified so that we would have a little bit extra in the bank for new tennis shoes, or emergency car repairs?  Definitely.  Because it would help. So, so much.

But we don’t qualify.  We aren't on the poverty line anymore.  Except, we really are.  

And once, for a couple of years, we were on government assistance.  We weren't drug dealers. We didn't live on the bad side of town.  We didn't have big SUVs and Prada purses and flashy jewelry.  We were normal.  The same as we are now.

Yet we still tiptoe around the poverty line.  It's the line that the middle class doesn't want to admit exists.  Middle class means success.  Good job, nice house, car.  You've achieved something. Made something of yourself.  Middle class doesn't mean poor.  At least, not in our minds.  And definitely not in the facade we show others.  

We are firmly middle class. And we are still the working poor.  

so ... this happened today

http://originalbunkerpunks.wix.com/originalbunkerpunks#!How-Deep-Does-It-Run-by-Kelly/c1kod/F4ACA672-2353-411D-94A0-58935E9BA8A4


i wrote something.  it's live at The Original Bunker Punks site.  i'm kinda panicking.

Some things never change ... but do I really want them to?

My sister-in-law moved last year.  She needed a change.  A new start.  So she picked her place and she packed up her kids, and she moved.  To a totally new place.  Yes, she has a cousin nearby.  But other than that – new town, new school, new job, new friends, new routine.  All new.  But she found her happy place, and I couldn't be more happy for her.

I find that move alternately fantastic and terrifying.

In a few months, my other sister-in-law is relocating too.  Hundreds of miles away.  It’s a good thing.  She’s happier than I have ever seen her.  But still.  Just packing up and moving to a brand new place.  New job, new schools, new friends, new life.  Scary.  And thrilling.

I can’t imagine packing up everything and moving to a new place hundreds of miles away.  Starting over.  Leaving family and friends behind.  It scares the shit out of me. 

Yet at the same time, I would love to do it.  Just once. Maybe.

When I was pregnant, the possibility arose that POF might have to relocate to Austin for his job.  We could have done that.  Could have moved.  Started over.  New everything.

But I couldn't.  Because I can’t leave this place.  I am tied here by family and friends.  Things I don’t want to leave.  Can’t leave.  At least not yet. 

Sometimes, like this morning, I think about it.  I imagine what it would have been like, to pack up and move to Austin.  I imagine what our lives might be like now.  Would we be better off financially, or struggling in a strange place on our own?  Would the kid love school as much as he does now, or would he hate it? What kind of job would I have? Would we have made new friends? How often would we come back here to visit, or would friends/family come visit us?

But then I think about all the other things that keep me here.  Wanting my kid to have his grandparents close by.  My friends close by. My whole life, my grandparents’ house was the one constant, my security, my safe place.  I want that for my kid.  For his kids.

I am in a constant state of conflict. About so many things.  Wanting to be carefree and able to pack up and move, yet feeling rooted and stuck to this place.  Wanting to have adventures, yet being terrified of the unknown. Wanting to be the girl who can go out on a moment’s notice, to somewhere unfamiliar, and be comfortable in a crowd, make friends easily, enjoy myself. But knowing that if I could be convinced to go, I would be hiding in a corner, avoiding eye contact and conversation, counting the minutes till I could escape.

I stop writing.  Re-read what I have written above.  And suddenly, there are tears. I’m not sure what they are for. Am I crying because I feel sad for that girl that longs to be free and fun-loving and social but just … can’t?  I don’t think so. I know who I am.  Most of the time I am comfortable with it.  So why the tears?  I’m not sure.

Maybe for the dream version of me. For what could have been.  Or might have been.  Or never will be.  For that adventure into a new place, leaving everything I know behind.  For the part of me that wants it.  For the part of me that is terrified by the thought of it.  For the part of me that knows it will probably never happen.

I will always be here.  Stuck.  Rooted.  The same.

Safe. Comfortable. Home.

Winter Wonderland

We finally got a dusting of snow over the weekend.  It was totally melted by noon, but for a couple of hours Saturday morning, we had snow.  As I tend to do, I grabbed the camera and set out to capture some shots of the winter magic.  Here are a few of my favorites.                                                      

 Walter caught in action.  He's like a deer, dashing around the back yard.

Here are shots of the trees and snow. I might have a bit of an obsession.

These last three I got just as the sun was really coming through the trees.  I saw spots for about 30 minutes after taking them, but it was totally worth it.

The point I am making here, is that 1989 was the shit

Watching The Minion run into school each morning is so adorable.  And it always makes me think about my school days.

Elementary school was undoubtedly the best time for me.  When everyone was friends with everyone else and I wasn't yet hyper focused on AP classes and scholarships and all that jazz.

But my favorite year of school was 9^th grade.  At the time, I went to a junior high, but the junior high thing was being phased out and everything was going to the middle school format.  We were the last freshman class.  We got away with all kinds of shit.

We were old enough to have power and be the rulers of the school, but still young enough that we really didn’t do anything too terribly dangerous or stupid.  Or at least my crowd didn't.  That I know of.

There was a rather large group of us that were friends.  My first and only time really being in that big group dynamic.  It’s just not my thing.  I’m more of a one friend at a time kind of girl.  But it was fun.  We had classes together and sat at a big long table together at lunch. Frozen Capri Suns and Teddy Grahams were the thing back then. And Guess jeans (though they never fit me right, so I always wore Levis). Pasta sweaters. Swatch watches (I was a Mickey watch girl myself). Big hair.  Oh Lord, the big hair. Mine was this odd orangish blond color thanks to a liberal dose of Sun In. 1988-89. The fashion was awesome and glam metal was mainstream.Every Friday night was spent walking around the mall for hours, seeing and being seen. The Good Ole Days.

I tend to block out a lot of stuff.  Most of high school is just a big blank, especially 11-12 grade.  I honestly do not remember more than a snippet of something here and there.  But 9^th grade, I remember.

I had a boyfriend that was MUCH older than me, and a VERY bad dude.  I think that was the only appeal truthfully.  People were scared shitless of him, and that was cool.  I spent just about every lunch hour of 9^th grade glued to the pay phone in the cafeteria.  Literally as my foot hit the bottom step into the cafeteria, the phone would ring.  He was diabolical like that.

 

I had big hair.  I was painfully sarcastic.  I wore a Harley biker jacket.  I smoked.  I cursed like a sailor.  I was definitely the rebel of the group.  People were intimidated by me, thought I was a giant bitch.  And I loved that.  Of course, I was also a straight A student in all honors classes and band.  Go figure.  I was a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.  In high school, I labeled this as being the band whore.  I was cool with it.  I didn't do drugs or drink or party.   I slept my way through half the drum line and a tuba player for good measure.  It was my thing. 

One thing that has always stayed with me is the sarcastic wit.  I’m not as quick with it as I used to be.  But man, back then, I used to just eviscerate people with words.  And much like now, I just did not give one flaming shit what anyone thought of me.  If you did not want the truth, then you should not ask me the question.  I was the friend that would tell you, “Yes, those pants do make you look fat.  And the color isn't that great on you either.  Also, what the hell is wrong with your make-up?  You look like a rodeo clown.”  Yeah, that was me.

This look here, yeah, it happened.  I never personally donned such hideousness (the fringe ... Sweet Baby Jesus, the fringe), but I remember seeing it with my very own eyes.

One girl in our group caught hell from me all the way through high school about her blue eyeliner.  Daily.  I found it just so personally offensive for some reason.  A small group of us got together and had dinner right before our ten year reunion.  As she slid into the booth and made eye contact, I looked right at her eyes.  And she blurted out, “It’s GRAY!”  I laughed so hard I almost peed.  Obviously my critique of her eyeliner choice left a lasting impression.  At the 20 year reunion, I figure she was probably quite pleased to see that while she was still tiny, I am not at least twice the size I was back then.  Some people get fat.  I’m one of them.  It happens.  It’s not really a big deal.  What I noticed was that she had on eyeliner that could only be described as Raccoon Style.  And it was not blue.  So, good for her.  Maybe she finally learned that blue eyeliner was not her friend.

Once during freshman year, the group got together and decided that I should no longer be allowed to be in the group of friends because I was just too damn mean.  They elected a spokesperson to deliver the news.  I don’t remember what I said to her in response.  I do remember that my life went on without a hitch for the next couple of weeks.  I didn't speak to them, didn't even acknowledge them.  I ate lunch, went to class, did my thing. Wasn't affected at all.  And after a couple of weeks, they graciously allowed me back in.  I still find that funny.  And even though I was “in” the group, I still didn't really participate with the group.  I was attached at the hip with my best friend, but the rest of them were incidental outside of school walls.  Even then, school was about school, not socialization.

For some reason that escapes me, our freshman English teacher was gone for most of the year.  We had a few substitutes before we got the one that was there long term.  He was a nice guy, but not really that interested in expanding our young minds.  It was more of a ‘highlight the key points of the lesson plan and then leave us to our own devices’ kind of approach.  We were good with that.  The school was what you could most simply describe as a split level.  And our classroom was on the second level.  It had a window.  The window opened.  Right out onto the roof of the school, right over the front entrance.  One day at lunch, several of the students got the bright idea to go out the window and hang out on the roof.  I don’t think they got caught.  And if they did, I don’t remember the punishment.  It was just one of those random acts that 14-year-olds do, and then feel like they've made some big statement.

I also remember someone getting the answer key to one of the tests and we all had tiny strips of paper on the inside of our watch bands with the answers.  I rarely studied and still pulled all A’s, so I just used it to check my answers.  But I remember him being amazed that we all aced the test.  Poor guy.

Same for science class.  We had those big tables with the black tops because we did lab stuff.  We sat two to a table. And on test day, the teacher would make us put our chairs at the ends of the table so we would be far apart and not cheat.  I never cheated.  But my friend and I did share a calculator and worked out an elaborate system of checking our answers against each other.  We still did the work.  And if we got different answers, then we’d both work the problem again.  The teacher watched us.  And he never could figure out how we always managed to miss the exact same questions.  Bless his little bow-tied heart.

I got meningitis and missed Halloween because I was in the hospital. That really sucked. Though my friends did come see me, I still hate that I missed out on the fun that year.

My best friend had a HUGE crush on a guy that played drums in band.  We were all friends.  He turned us on to Led Zeppelin.  He always wore Polo.  Somehow I ended up with a bottle of his Polo.  And in like 2001 when we moved into our house, I was cleaning out the shelf in our headboard and found that bottle.  I have no idea why I had kept it, but there it was. Some good memories there.

Sometimes it’s nice to take that stroll down memory lane.  But it’s always best to come back to the present.  Who I was then, definitely shaped who I am today.  I’m older.  Better.  And I still don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.

Dealing with obnoxious mom and pre-teens, and living to tell the tale

This weekend was full of events. 

Saturday morning we were at The Minion’s school for his big fall festival school fundraiser thingy.  Because I was having a moment of weakness, and truthfully just damn tired of getting all the stupid emails, I volunteered to do an hour at his classroom game booth.

I don’t mind doing that sort of thing, when I have the time.  But, I sure do hate the people I have to deal with.  First, let me say that this is my first official kindergarten volunteer experience.  Second, our room mother sucks.  Not only did she not tell the volunteers what the game actually was, she also didn’t mention where it was located.  I assumed it would be by the classroom.  It was not.

I spent 45 minutes searching for someone (ANYONE) who could tell me where his class game was.  It took me several volunteers before I was finally sent to a PTO mom with a walkie talkie, and she pointed me in the direction of another PTO mom with The Notebook.  Notebook Keeper was able to tell me what the game was, and where it was located.  In the courtyard, across from the library … which was nowhere near his class.  I was 5 minutes late.

The mom that was there was cool.  There were two senior guys there helping, and it was actually a fun bean bag toss type deal with an Angry Bird theme.  The boys were very sweet with the kids.  And one of them had actually played in the big town rivalry football game the night before, so he was dead on his feet.  Yet he still volunteered for the day and arrived at 9 AM for his duty.  Bless his heart.  He is the kind of kid that I hope The Minion becomes.

My time to leave comes and goes, and no new mom is there to replace me. Finally, at about 20 minutes after her scheduled shift, she rushes in, dumps her pre-teen daughter to help me, and then rushes back out saying she has to find her son first since he thought the game was near the classroom.

Now, at this point I need to take a little side journey regarding this mom. Follow me, if you will.

You may remember a Facebook post a while back about a birthday party where the birthday boy was kind of a dick.  Where the mom was actually about 15 minutes late to her own kid’s party.  She was a flurry of drama in her very fashionable maxi skirt, and I just couldn’t even deal.

A week later, this same mom made an appearance at another party.  At this party she ranted about how the party mom not personally addressing her and welcoming her to the party pissed her off.  About how she had to do EVERYTHING at home and that even when her husband asks if she needs help, she’d just rather do it herself. Because, obviously, if he can’t look around and see what needs to be done, why bother.  Remember her?  Yeah.  A real crazy bitch if I ever encountered one.  So, her behavior here isn’t all that surprising.  Okay, back to the tale.

The son is quite the little shit.  But her daughter is fantastic.  She jumped right in to help.  She is super sweet. I actually feel rather sorry for her.  For those keeping a tally … she arrived 20 minutes late to her appointed time.  Now, she FINALLY reappears another 20 minutes later.  She has approximately 20 minutes left of her volunteer shift.

Once again, she rushes out the door to where we are, all frantic drama.  So so sorry it took so long.  She had to find her son, and then she had to get him fed.  But she’s here now, and thanks so much for staying longer, blah blah fucking blah.

Now.  I have several problems with this.  In no particular order:

    

    You volunteered for a specific time frame.  Do not show up late and then vanish again.

        

       You were aware of the time frame.  Feed your kid FIRST.

    POF saw her leaving initially and her son was WITH her.  They actually went back outside and he jumped on the bouncies for about 15 minutes, then they spend the last few minutes walking around the cafeteria looking at the crafts and stuff, and stopping at the bake sale booth for a treat. Bitch just flat out LIED.

POF said that she had Crazy Eyes and he would stay well away from her if he was me.  I concur.  As I said, based on my previous encounters with her, this wasn’t really a surprise.  But it did really piss me off.  She gets to pat herself on the back for being such a good volunteer mom – with such a busy schedule – and everyone else gets to clean up her mess and resist the urge to smack her.  

I am sure there are MANY moms like this at school.  And I am wondering how long I will endure it before losing my shit on one of them.  Time will tell.

Finally, to POF’s credit, he did not say a word, but he did let her know that he knew she was full of shit.  Apparently she passed him as she was rushing out to “go find her son”.  Since he was with The Minion and they were wandering around, he passed her a few times.  He made sure to make eye contact with her at the bouncies AND in the cafeteria.  

And he was back in a flash at the game site when he saw her headed that way.  He made eye contact there too, as she was giving her “I had to find him and feed him” routine.  He stared her down HARD.  There was no doubt that she knew that he KNEW she was spouting bullshit lies. And he made sure that she knew that he was with me.  So, hopefully she will keep her distance in the future and I won’t have to verbally disembowel her in public.

After I was finished with my momly duty, we went back home for a bite to eat and a nap before our evening adventure. 

The evening was all about some Halloween fun at The Hermitage.  The Hermitage is a historic site, the home of President Andrew Jackson.  One night a year they open the plantation up for trick or treating and other fun stuff.  I had never been to the Halloween event.  In fact I haven’t been there since I was a kid on a school field trip.  I happened to score free tickets, so I figured it was worth checking out.

We got there and there was a huge line waiting to enter.  And as luck would have it (sarcasm on), we happened to end up behind a group of 25. The group consisted of approximately 18 pre-teen girls.  All were in elaborate costumes. Two of the parents that were chaperoning consisted of a local news station anchor and his wife.  Obviously private school.  One of the other moms had her big fancy camera, and she was so obnoxious with the photo taking, I was ready to slap her before we even got in the gate.

Okay, Queen of Hearts, give me your best Queen face!  Oh, love it!!!

Alright Cleopatra, give me your best Egyptian pose!  So great!!!

Come on Miss Pirate, give me your best ARRRGGG!  LOVE IT!!!!

And on, and on.  It was so over the top.  I swear that woman filled up a memory chip before we even got to the main part of the night.

As we are standing there in line waiting, the news van for this anchor’s station pulls up.  So of course he’s all “Oh, what are ‘my people’ doing here?” and goes to check it out.  Here he comes back a minute later, camera crew in tow. 

“Come on girls!  Let’s circle around and say hi to everyone watching the news!!!”

Oh yay.  I am trapped behind this group.  And now I might be shown on the news, totally against my will.  I am beyond thrilled.

We make our way through the gate and manage to get around them as we head up the path toward the house.  But as we are literally walking up to the first trick or treat point, they swarm us and another family, totally pushing us aside to get there first.  Alright you little Mean Girl bitches, it’s on!

They go in the two house tour groups ahead of us, and I am hoping that gives them enough time to get a bit ahead so we can avoid them.  No luck.  Every stop has a line waiting.  We get into the potions line.  We are in front of the group, thankfully. 

The set-up was neat.  Three ladies, in period costume, at this long table.  Each had three ‘herbs’ in big apothecary jars.  They give a little spiel about how back then they didn’t have pharmacies and had to rely on home remedies for things, and explain a little bit about what each of the three herbs were for.  Then they put a tiny spoon of each into an adorably small mortar and pestle and let the kids crush it up.  The results are put into a tiny little vial with an equally tiny cork stopper.  So cute.  The Minion was excited to get a magic potion.

It is finally our turn and we are with the lady at the very end of the table.  The group of Mean Girls is slowly starting to crowd around the table, to the point where they are just about in her lap.  She asks politely, twice, for them to please not crowd.  She’s trying to go through her little speech and is getting distracted by them.  

One interrupts her, right in the middle of a sentence.

“Hey, is that candy?” (pointing to the plastic cauldron of gummies next to her)

She stops, looks up. “Yes.  You get a treat for your candy bag after you make your potion.” Prepares to continue her speech.

“Oh, can I have one now?”, as she is taking one out of the pot.

“Me too! I want one!” Another hand into the cauldron

And another hand, and another.

At this point, I am glaring at them. I mean, really, could you be any more rude and obnoxious?! No manners.  The parents looked on.  I was incensed.

Two of the girls from the group had by this point come to the other side of me, to the lady in the middle of the table, for their potion.  The one next to me looks over, sees hands in the cauldron, and says, “Oh I want candy!”, and proceeds to reach ACROSS me and The Minion to get one.  I looked her square in the eye and said “REALLY?” She drew her hand back pretty quick and looked away.

 

Ran into this little guy in the Stay-Puft costume several times.  Cutest. Thing. Ever.

We finished our potion, then took a stroll through the garden and ventured over to the hayride line.  We managed to get far enough ahead of them at that point that we had about 8 people between us and their group in the hayride line.  This was enough to ensure some distance from them for a while.

The Minion loved the haunted hayride.  He wasn’t at all scared of the ‘monsters’ that were jumping out at us, and loved the zombies from the cornfield chasing us. Even when we went through the old barn and fireworks were popping and people were jumping up from everywhere screaming … he wasn’t impressed.  The ten year old boys beside us were losing their shit.

Afterward we grabbed some popcorn and a big sugar cookie to tide us over, then moseyed our way around the grounds to get a bit more candy before leaving.  We went to the original log farm house and walked out to the big porch on the back.  The two rooms on each side were set up for pumpkin decorating, but it was PACKED and I wasn’t going to deal with that chaos.  After playing on the porch area for a bit, we headed back toward the main house.  

If I ever get to build my dream house, I want a porch like this.

They had a big movie screen set up and they were showing Halloween movies, so we sat down and watched about 15 minutes of Frankenweenie. By then it was close to 7 pm, and they changeover to the more scary stuff for the older crowd was about to happen.  The Minion agreed we needed to get gone before that happened.  It was fully dark and he was starting to worry about people jumping out to scare us.  So we headed to the parking lot and made our way home.

I asked him what he wanted for dinner, and he chose Krystal.  Love this boy.

For those not of The South, you may have something similar in your area known as White Castle.  However let me stress that, while similar, White Castle ain’t got nothin on a Krystal.  They are tiny squares of deliciousness.  Best consumed when slightly drunk at 3 am, but always good.

We scored our bounty – including a few Krystal Chicks for variety (little chicken sandwiches, equally yummy) – and headed home.  I was fighting a headache pretty seriously by that point, so I was ready for bed.  I had all day Sunday to rest and recoup.  I STILL have a headache.  And I also still have some serious seething rage about those bratty ass teenage girls.  Someone needs to smack some manners into those little heifers.

Boys apparently find it impossible to aim INTO a toilet. Surprise.

Today, my friends, we are talking about pee.  Specifically, the tiny one’s inability to effectively convey said pee from his body to the toilet.  The Minion, it seems, has very shitty aim.

Okay, that’s not exactly true.  The kid has a surprising trajectory and range, given the right circumstances.  Put him outside with a target, and the kid could hit a bull’s-eye from a good ten feet.  He’s like that carnival game where you shoot the water gun at the target to inflate the balloon.  It’s impressive.  But, give him a toilet a mere foot away, and all bets are off.

Add to the fact that this same child, who can sit for HOURS and build with Legos, apparently enters the bathroom and suddenly develops the attention span of a housefly with ADHD.  He’s looking around everywhere.  And naturally, where his eyes go, the penis follows.  So that means the pee follows.  Suddenly I have some sort of demented Water Wiggler situation in my bathroom.  No wonder it always smells like a gas station men’s room.

Just the other morning, I walked into the bathroom to something so incredible, I thought I was seeing things. 

Now, keep in mind, the total width of the bathroom is maybe 6 feet.  And once you add in the toilet sticking out, there’s probably only 3.5 feet of actual space between the wall and the toilet. Still. 

I walked in to find The Minion, casually leaning against the wall, peeing into the toilet.  The toilet on the opposite wall.  Over the distance of that 3.5 feet.  With terrible inaccuracy.  Pee was going all over the place.  And he did not give a shit.

Now, I realize he was sick and didn’t feel well.  But damn, dude.  No wonder I can’t ever get rid of the pee smell.  I screeched at him to pee INTO the toilet.  And, as a natural response, he looked AT me to whine that he KNEW that.  And, as it always happens, when he looked at me, the penis followed.  So now, not only do I have pee all over the toilet – and wall – but also on ME.  It was a moment.  And not a good one.  He starts crying.  I try to calmly remind him that we pee INTO the toilet, not around, beside, above or below it.  More crying.  I send him shuffling out and spend a good ten minutes scrubbing the area.  Gagging was involved.

So now I am THAT mom.  The mom that follows the kid to the bathroom to supervise and remind him to aim at the actual toilet.  Repeatedly.  And then remind him to aim down, he does not need to look at me.  This is followed by the caveat that I know we generally make eye contact when communicating.  But when we are in the bathroom and I tell him to not look at me, for the love of all that is holy, keep your eyes on the toilet. 

And this inevitably ends up with him saying that he can look around and not pee everywhere.  Then he tries to demonstrate.  And then we have pee everywhere again.  It’s like Groundhog Day, the Urine Version.

I am dreading the teenage years.  Though I am hoping that his aim will improve somewhat.  His father seems capable of hitting the bowl, so there’s hope.